Some Stratospherically Strenuous Sudoku

Question

These three sudoku are particularly irksome, can you logically deduce the solutions to all (or any!) ...and provide your reasoning?

They are all proper sudoku - each has a unique solution.

They can, of course, be solved by brute force (I can get their solution in milliseconds too).

1. "$13$ cigars, $8$ doughnuts, and $2$ false exits for Columbo."

      1  2  3   4  5  6   7  8  9
   +---------+---------+---------+
   A| 1  ·  · | ·  9  · | ·  ·  5 |A
   B| ·  ·  4 | ·  ·  · | 1  ·  · |B
   C| ·  7  · | ·  ·  1 | ·  6  · |C
   +---------+---------+---------+
   D| ·  ·  9 | ·  3  · | 2  ·  · |D
   E| ·  ·  · | ·  ·  8 | ·  ·  3 |E
   F| 3  ·  · | 9  ·  5 | ·  ·  · |F
   +---------+---------+---------+
   G| 2  ·  · | ·  8  · | ·  ·  9 |G
   H| ·  ·  1 | ·  ·  · | 7  ·  · |H
   J| ·  6  · | ·  ·  · | ·  4  · |J
   +---------+---------+---------+
   1  2  3   4  5  6   7  8  9

2. "$59$ little grey cells for Poirot."

          1  2  3   4  5  6   7  8  9
   +---------+---------+---------+
   A| ·  ·  9 | ·  ·  3 | 4  ·  · |A
   B| ·  2  · | ·  ·  · | ·  ·  8 |B
   C| 1  ·  · | ·  ·  · | ·  5  · |C
   +---------+---------+---------+
   D| ·  8  · | ·  ·  · | ·  ·  1 |D
   E| 5  ·  · | ·  ·  · | ·  2  · |E
   F| ·  ·  6 | ·  ·  7 | 9  ·  · |F
   +---------+---------+---------+
   G| ·  ·  · | ·  3  5 | ·  ·  · |G
   H| ·  ·  3 | 6  7  · | ·  ·  · |H
   J| ·  ·  · | 9  4  · | 7  ·  · |J
   +---------+---------+---------+
   1  2  3   4  5  6   7  8  9

3. "$22$ premises for Sherlock."

      1  2  3   4  5  6   7  8  9
   +---------+---------+---------+
   A| 3  ·  · | ·  ·  6 | ·  4  · |A
   B| ·  ·  · | ·  2  · | 1  ·  · |B
   C| ·  5  · | ·  ·  · | ·  ·  8 |C
   +---------+---------+---------+
   D| ·  8  · | 9  ·  3 | ·  7  · |D
   E| ·  ·  · | ·  ·  · | 8  ·  5 |E
   F| 7  ·  · | ·  ·  · | ·  9  · |F
   +---------+---------+---------+
   G| 9  ·  · | 6  ·  4 | ·  ·  · |G
   H| ·  2  · | ·  1  · | ·  ·  · |H
   J| ·  ·  6 | 7  ·  · | ·  ·  · |J
   +---------+---------+---------+
   1  2  3   4  5  6   7  8  9

---

These sudoku are not my own creations, they are permutations of other's work. I will credit their creators to the best of my ability when the puzzling is done. here...

These were permuted from some entries in the "Hardest Sudokus" database, which was available via the New Sudoku Player's Forum (no https version) as compiled by the user champagne. I cannot find the posts for the first two, so below are
My title - "DB author text" - forum user name (DB date) original in column-major order:

1. Columbo - "elev" - eleven* (?) ........94....92......7..45..1.3.....7.6..9..8....7..2.3.7..8....6.1....9....5.2.
2. Poirot - "dob" - dobrichev* (12 Dec 2003) .......12......345..3..46....2..1.3..7..6....8..9.......5..2..4.6..8....9..7.....
3. Sherlock - "OW" - Obi-Wahn (Aug 2015) 5.6...7...1.3.....8...5.9.....1...2.....8.6.7.....2.4.7...9...6.3...42....5......

* I think

Answer 1

Question 1

This one was quite hard.

   1  2  3   4  5  6   7  8  9
 +---------+---------+---------+
A| 1  2  6 | 4  9  7 | 8  3  5 |A
B| 9  5  4 | 8  6  3 | 1  2  7 |B
C| 8  7  3 | 5  2  1 | 9  6  4 |C
 +---------+---------+---------+
D| 7  4  9 | 1  3  6 | 2  5  8 |D
E| 6  1  5 | 2  7  8 | 4  9  3 |E
F| 3  8  2 | 9  4  5 | 6  7  1 |F
 +---------+---------+---------+
G| 2  3  7 | 6  8  4 | 5  1  9 |G
H| 4  9  1 | 3  5  2 | 7  8  6 |H
J| 5  6  8 | 7  1  9 | 3  4  2 |J
 +---------+---------+---------+
   1  2  3   4  5  6   7  8  9

Question 2

Easier than the first

   1  2  3   4  5  6   7  8  9
 +---------+---------+---------+
A| 8  6  9 | 5  1  3 | 4  7  2 |A
B| 4  2  5 | 7  6  9 | 1  3  8 |B
C| 1  3  7 | 4  2  8 | 6  5  9 |C
 +---------+---------+---------+
D| 7  8  2 | 3  9  4 | 5  6  1 |D
E| 5  9  4 | 1  8  6 | 3  2  7 |E
F| 3  1  6 | 2  5  7 | 9  8  4 |F
 +---------+---------+---------+
G| 9  7  1 | 8  3  5 | 2  4  6 |G
H| 2  4  3 | 6  7  1 | 8  9  5 |H
J| 6  5  8 | 9  4  2 | 7  1  3 |J
 +---------+---------+---------+
   1  2  3   4  5  6   7  8  9

Question 3

This one took a while too

   1  2  3   4  5  6   7  8  9
 +---------+---------+---------+
A| 3  1  2 | 8  9  6 | 5  4  7 |A
B| 8  7  9 | 4  2  5 | 1  3  6 |B
C| 6  5  4 | 1  3  7 | 9  2  8 |C
 +---------+---------+---------+
D| 2  8  5 | 9  6  3 | 4  7  1 |D
E| 4  9  3 | 2  7  1 | 8  6  5 |E
F| 7  6  1 | 5  4  8 | 2  9  3 |F
 +---------+---------+---------+
G| 9  3  8 | 6  5  4 | 7  1  2 |G
H| 5  2  7 | 3  1  9 | 6  8  4 |H
J| 1  4  6 | 7  8  2 | 3  5  9 |J
 +---------+---------+---------+
   1  2  3   4  5  6   7  8  9

All in all, it took me about a week in my free time to do all of these. I am on my holidays so I spent hours each day, racking my brain through these. Definitely some of the harder ones that I have seen.

My Reasoning

I used the cross-hatching method as shown in this Link. And if that didn't work out, I would start over again.

Answer 2

I don't think you are going to get a better logical explanation of a solve for these. I ran them through Sudoku Explainer and they all got a score of SE 11.8 or SE 11.9 which is well in the range of not reasonably human solvable. I also ran them through multiple other human style solvers and they all choked. It's possible there is some obscure method that none of the solvers I used have implemented yet but it is more likely there is no straightforward human friendly logical solution to them. Following is the output of Sudoku Explainer for each board. If you want more step by step info I suggest you get Sudoku Explainer:

13 cigars, 8 doughnuts, and 2 false exits for Columbo.
Analysis results
Difficulty rating: 11.8
This Sudoku can be solved using the following logical methods: 
55 x Hidden Single 
1 x Direct Hidden Pair 
1 x Naked Single 
3 x Pointing 
2 x Claiming 
5 x Naked Pair 
1 x Hidden Pair 
1 x BUG type 1 
5 x Turbot Fish 
1 x Forcing X-Chain 
2 x Bidirectional Cycle 
5 x Forcing Chain 
1 x Nishio Forcing Chains 
1 x Cell Forcing Chains 
4 x Region Forcing Chains 
6 x Dynamic Cell Forcing Chains 
15 x Dynamic Region Forcing Chains 
8 x Dynamic Contradiction Forcing Chains 
7 x Dynamic Contradiction Forcing Chains (+) 
1 x Dynamic Double Forcing Chains (+) 
9 x Dynamic Contradiction Forcing Chains (+ Forcing Chains) 
6 x Dynamic Contradiction Forcing Chains (+ Multiple Forcing Chains) 
1 x Dynamic Contradiction Forcing Chains (+ Dynamic Forcing Chains) 

59 little grey cells for Poirot.
Analysis results
Difficulty rating: 11.8
This Sudoku can be solved using the following logical methods: 
59 x Hidden Single 
8 x Pointing 
9 x Claiming 
6 x Naked Pair 
3 x Hidden Pair 
4 x Naked Triplet 
1 x Swordfish 
1 x XYZ-Wing 
3 x Bidirectional Y-Cycle 
2 x Turbot Fish 
1 x Forcing X-Chain 
10 x Forcing Chain 
1 x Bidirectional Cycle 
4 x Nishio Forcing Chains 
1 x Cell Forcing Chains 
3 x Region Forcing Chains 
1 x Dynamic Cell Forcing Chains 
16 x Dynamic Contradiction Forcing Chains 
1 x Dynamic Region Forcing Chains 
5 x Dynamic Contradiction Forcing Chains (+) 
2 x Dynamic Region Forcing Chains (+) 
3 x Dynamic Contradiction Forcing Chains (+ Forcing Chains) 
2 x Dynamic Contradiction Forcing Chains (+ Multiple Forcing Chains) 
3 x Dynamic Cell Forcing Chains (+ Dynamic Forcing Chains) 
1 x Dynamic Contradiction Forcing Chains (+ Dynamic Forcing Chains) 
3 x Dynamic Region Forcing Chains (+ Dynamic Forcing Chains) 

22 premises for Sherlock:
Analysis results
Difficulty rating: 11.9
This Sudoku can be solved using the following logical methods: 
55 x Hidden Single 
2 x Direct Hidden Pair 
6 x Pointing 
1 x Claiming 
2 x Naked Pair 
1 x Unique Rectangle type 1 
1 x Turbot Fish 
1 x Bidirectional Cycle 
4 x Forcing Chain 
2 x Cell Forcing Chains 
4 x Region Forcing Chains 
7 x Dynamic Region Forcing Chains 
5 x Dynamic Contradiction Forcing Chains 
1 x Dynamic Region Forcing Chains (+) 
1 x Dynamic Contradiction Forcing Chains (+) 
1 x Dynamic Region Forcing Chains (+ Forcing Chains) 
6 x Dynamic Contradiction Forcing Chains (+ Forcing Chains) 
6 x Dynamic Contradiction Forcing Chains (+ Multiple Forcing Chains) 
6 x Dynamic Contradiction Forcing Chains (+ Dynamic Forcing Chains) 
1 x Dynamic Cell Forcing Chains (+ Dynamic Forcing Chains) 
2 x Dynamic Region Forcing Chains (+ Dynamic Forcing Chains) 
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